Microsoft to Pay Nearly $20 Billion Over 6 Years for Third-Party AI Infrastructure

Unable to meet its own needs for AI infrastructure, Microsoft has agreed to pay Nebius $17.4 billion to $19.4 billion over 6 years for access to its U.S.- and European-based AI datacenter capacity.

“The economics of the deal are attractive in their own right, but, significantly, the deal will also help us to accelerate the growth of our AI cloud business even further in 2026 and beyond,” Nebius CEO Arkady Volozh says. “Nebius’s core AI cloud business, serving customers from AI startups to enterprises, is performing exceptionally well.”

Nebius is a Netherlands-based AI infrastructure company formerly known as Yandex, when it was based in Russia. It has datacenters in Finland and Paris, plus two U.S. datacenters under construction in Kansas City, Missouri, and New Jersey.

According to the company, Nebius will provide Microsoft with dedicated GPU infrastructure capacity in New Jersey when that facility goes online later this year.

Microsoft hasn’t commented on the deal, but it triggered a 50 percent gain in Nebius’ stock